If you think back to your childhood, Saturday mornings were an idyllic time, watching cartoons and other children’s programming on television. When I lived in the United Kingdom in the late 70s and early 80s as a child, my Saturday morning experience included watching a TV show on BBC called Multi-Coloured Swap Shop with Noel Edmonds. It was an interactive show where kids would phone in and volunteer to swap their belongings such as toys and collectibles with other children throughout the UK.

When I moved to the States in ’84, Saturday mornings were filled with classic cartoons from Hanna-Barbera as well as Captain Caveman and dozens of other shows. I remember going over to my friend’s house every Saturday morning to meet him there before we went to our travel-team soccer game, and he and his brother would always be religiously glued to the TV until the very last second before we left.

Those Saturday morning rituals that many of us have experienced, where we often woke up early in excitement to watch the children’s programming, make me wonder whether they’re one of the reasons that many of us in the United States love watching the ESPN2 early kick-off at 7:30am ET. Of course, we’re all a lot older now, but that buzz I get from watching a match on television on a Saturday morning is the same buzz I got when I was a kid, glued to the TV set.

Does that ring true for you?